I think I would have loved to have seen a comic about an adult like Atty going on a pokemon adventure. There are plenty of kids & teens, but what about adults? There are totally mid-life crisis age characters on adventures in the games after all!

Adult trainers@Guest: Yeah we never really use any preteens or even under 16 (I think that was the youngest) trainers in the PTA games I've been in. The whole thing about maybe dying due to Electrode or even losing a Pokemon to death by wild at the age Ash [u]still[/u] is just seems a bit to much for kids to handle.

That and they probably would just complain when we ahve to go ransack a nest of wild Ekans to grill over a fire for dinner, Mmmhmm.. tastes like Combusken.

@Magical Fish: Well, the reason was because he didn't want to be a gym leader, to begin with: he wanted to be a breeder. The reason he became the leader was because his father was the previous leader, and he disappeared, leaving his 8 or so children by themselves, so Brock had to step up to sustain the family. He was finally free to leave the gym when his father returned home, and must've decided traveling with ash would be better than traveling alone. </nerd>

@Magical Fish: if you watch the episode where ash beats him it tells you that he had always wanted to travel and learn more about being a pokemon breeder but never had the chance because his dad left him and his brothers and sisters, so brock had to stay and look after them. at the end of the episode it turns out the crazy guy that helped supercharge pikachu was actually brocks dad, he goes back to his family and tells brock to go traveling while he takes care of them.
EDIT: Aww crap, ninja'd by @Former DT_Fan(Guest) D:

You know, if the gym leaders left and were replaced each time someone beat them it'd actually explain why the 'early' gym leaders have the weakest pokemon. If you're first in line to get knocked out by every wana-be bug catcher you'd never have time to level your pokemon before you're replaced. Contrawise the last gym leader is rarely challenged and almost never has to step down.

Some timing of pokemon@Salamander: For the statue, it was 1981 - 1999, which translates to the year when gold/silver was released or by anime 1999 contains the very end of the first season, the entirety of the second and the start of the third. I would guess that the disappearance would be when the second season ends, although there is no month/day to give any indication. I'm going off Japanese release date here, so if was for US, it would be at the second half of the first season and the first episode of the second during 1999.
Of course this depends all on the canon time vs real time, but wild guessing is too fun.